Reference no: EM132382405

CHNG5006 Advanced Wastewater Engineering Assignment - The University of Sydney, Australia

INTRODUCTION -

It is gratefully acknowledged that material used here has been taken from an IWES short course on Coal Seam Gas Water Management that Professor Barton attended.

A company (IWES CSG Pty Ltd) is proposing to develop the IWES CSG field. Although both the company and the CSG field are imaginary, it is possible to infer the general location within Australia from the information given on the map provided. Although the map is largely self-explanatory, the following points should be noted:

• The People's Place is an area set aside for general recreational activity and is regularly used by a range of organisations.
• The three IWES test wells have simply been used to provide gas and water samples (not for gas production). The results have looked very promising indeed.
• Although no hydraulic fracturing trials have been carried out thus far, the company would like to employ fracking technology if they are given permission to develop this gas field, so as to raise its productivity (and hence its profitability).
• There are extensive coal reserves in the area (not all of which can be economically mined) that are currently being exploited by several companies.
• The area supports a strong agricultural industry (various crops, cattle and aquaculture).
• A significant number of indigenous people live in the area and have an on-going affiliation with local cultural sites.

A public forum (i.e. Lecture 9) has recently taken place in the Dunnalong Town Hall presided over by the Mayor (who trained and practised as a chemical engineer before returning to his home town and entering local politics). All interested parties (listed below) attended this forum and presented their views on the proposal to develop the IWES CSG field.

• IWES CSG
• CORPCO CSG (who have been operating profitably in the area for several years)
• UNDERCO (who have obtained promising results from their UCG pilot-plant)
• The local Landowners Association (representing both farming and livestock interests)
• The indigenous community
• The State Government
• The Dunnalong Regional Council
• A local Environmental Group (with strong links to various State-wide associations)

ASSESSMENT TASK -

Each student will be assigned one of the four stakeholders highlighted above and will prepare a short report that summarises the likely position of that stakeholder. Reports should:

• Be no more than four (4) pages long (= maximum of three pages of text plus an annotated map), logical in content and layout, and very nicely formatted.
• Focus on the key concerns of the allocated stakeholder - CORPCO CSG
• Not be a collection of vague generalities obtained from the Internet.
• Build your stakeholder's perspective around identified features shown on the map given (an annotated version of which should be included as one page of your report).

Additional Information -

1. Your report should begin by stating which stakeholder is being considered, who they repre-sent, and why they feel that their perspective is an important one in deciding whether CSG production should be expanded in the Dunnalong region.

2. Coal reserves are already being exploited in the Dunnalong region (i.e. via coal mining, a commercial CSG production facility, and a pilot-scale UCG facility). Each of these will have made a range of impacts on the region. Here you are being asked to describe what these im-pacts (both good and bad) might be. Note that you are not being asked to undertake a comprehensive literature review, but rather to use your engineering insight to provide a likely overview of the various impacts of existing coal utilisation in the area.

3. The three IWES test wells have produced samples that indicate that full-scale CSG production is highly likely to be commercially viable, especially if the company is permitted to employ fracking technology. Commercial operation would mean the drilling of a substantial number of CSG production wells that would lead to significant flows of produced and flowback water that would have to be 'managed' in some way. Here you are being asked to discuss the likely effects (both good and bad) that permitting IWES to proceed to full-scale production would have from your stakeholder's perspective. Again, you are not being asked to undertake a comprehensive literature review, but to use your engineering insight to discuss the likely impact of increasing CSG production in the Dunnalong region.

4. This report focusses on the impact that a commercial IWES operation would have on the Dunnalong region. Thus, your discussion needs to be closely aligned with the existing features of this area as shown on the map provided. For example, the Wannalong Bore and the People's Place both lie within IWES's lease, the Rocky River flows through their lease, while CORPCO already have both a gas plant and a water treatment facility close to the IWES lease. How does your stakeholder view the impact of a commercial IWES operation on local features such as these?

5. Engineering reports need to 'tell a story' that allows any reader to quickly appreciate the key issues being raised and discussed. In the last assessment task, detailed technical information (from BioWin) was best summarised using tables and/or figures. Here, the recommended ap-proach to formatting your report is to make extensive use of the map provided to explain to the reader: (i) who the stakeholder is (and why they are involved in the discussion), (ii) what the present situation is with respect to existing coal utilisation in the Dunnalong region, and (iii) what the anticipated impacts of expanding CSG production might be.

Attachment:- Advanced Wastewater Engineering Assignment File.rar